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Violence, Criminalization, and the Homeless
Violence, Criminalization, and the Homeless Amy M Donley, James D Wright, and Jerian Benwell-Lybarger, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract Homeless people are sometimes the perpetrators and quite often the victims of crime and violence. This article reviews the available research on this topic, focusing mainly on studies conducted in the United States. Homeless teens, women, the mentally ill, and the substance-abusive are shown to be especially high-risk subpopulations. Random acts of violence committed against homeless people are evidently on the rise, both in the United States and around the world. Around the world, many communities have responded to the rise in homelessness by criminalizing homeless behaviors. Unfortunately these measures do not assist people in exiting homelessness.
In popular thinking, homelessness and crime are tightly interwoven (Amster, 2008). Homeless shelters and other locales frequented by homeless people are routinely avoided because they are perceived as crime hot spots, and homeless people themselves are routinely avoided because of their real or imagined criminal potential (Snow et al., 1989). Homeless individuals are often seen as irresponsible and deviant, leading to a public perception that equates homelessness and crime (Barak, 2002). While the media and many policies targeting homeless people focus on the perpetration of crime by homeless people, scholarly research has tended to focus on the victimization of homeless people (Crawford et al., 2011).
The Homeless as Perpetrators of Violence Most of what we know about criminal perpetration by homeless people comes from studies examining previous arrest and prison experience. In a study of 767 homeless people in Austin Texas, Snow et al. (1989) found that the typical arrest of a homeless person was for a minor offense such as vagrancy or shoplifting. Out of their total sample, 32% had been arrested at least once, but the vast majority of those arrests were for nonviolent crimes. While homeless men are no more likely than the general male population to commit violent crimes, they are arrested more frequently for nonviolent crimes (Snow et al., 1989). A national survey of homeless providers and homeless clients in the United States found that 49% had been incarcerated for five or more days in jail, but only 18% had spent time in a federal prison (Burt et al., 1999). The authors note that, “some of these jail experiences may have been a direct result of their homelessness (i.e., the charges might be for behaviors that are difficult to avoid if one is homeless, such as loitering)” (Burt et al., 1999: 25). Kushel et al. (2005) found that among their sample of 1500 homeless people, nearly a quarter had spent time in prison. Drug use (specifically cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin) as well as mental illness were positively correlated with past prison experience. In the United Kingdom, Fitzpatrick et al. (2013) conducted a statistically generalizable survey of homeless people and found that 46% had been incarcerated at some point in their lives. However, detailed information on the nature of their incarceration was not available and, thus, the nature of the crimes committed is not known.
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Both mental illness and substance abuse among homeless people increase the likelihood that they will be arrested and incarcerated. In a study of homeless adults, 20% of those with substance abuse issues had been arrested in the past year compared to 10% of those that did not have a substance abuse problem (O’Toole et al., 2004). McGuire and Rosenheck (2004) found in their study of 7000 homeless people with serious mental illness that two-thirds had histories of incarceration. However, of these about half had spent a total of six months or less of their lives incarcerated. Among those with more extensive incarceration histories, substance abuse was a positive correlate, illustrating the relationship between mental illness and substance abuse. In the United States, there are well-established links between mental illness, incarceration, and homelessness (DeLisi, 2000; Ditton, 1999; Snow et al., 1989). Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the United States began in 1955; thus, by 1980 or so (usually taken as the onset of the large upsurge of homelessness that happened in American and cities abroad), most persons destined to be deinstitutionalized already had been. The proper concern for the past two decades has, therefore, been not with deinstitutionalized but rather with the ‘never institutionalized,’ namely, mentally ill homeless people who had never been brought into a system of care. A related and even more pressing concern has been with the ‘trans-institutionalized’; that is, those who might have been in mental hospitals in years past but are now in prisons and jails instead (Raphael and Stoll, 2013). Many homeless mentally ill people spend a great deal of time incarcerated; indeed, Torrey et al. (2010) conclude that there are more mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in psychiatric hospitals. Similarly, Markowitz (2006) found that in the United States, increased mental health and psychiatric hospital capacity was correlated with lower levels of homelessness. Most homeless people with mental illness problems in the United States find that there is nowhere to go for help. These individuals are often on the streets, increasing the likelihood of arrest and incarceration. Among homeless youth, less is known about criminal perpetration. However, in the research that has been done, victimization and perpetration are both salient parts of a typical homeless youth’s life (Crawford et al., 2011). One of the first studies examining criminal perpetration among homeless youths found that nearly 1 in 6 of the Los Angeles area youths in their sample had attacked someone with
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a weapon while being on the streets, although this percentage was much lower than the rates of victimization these youths experienced (Kipke et al., 1997). In the Crawford et al. study, homeless youth who were female, nonminority, and heterosexual were less likely to engage in violence than their opposites; alcohol and drug-abusers were more likely to engage in violence, a common finding (Chen et al., 2006; Kipke et al., 1997). Moreover, increased time on the streets is positively correlated to rates of criminal perpetration (Whitbeck and Hoyt, 1999). Most studies of violence perpetration among the homeless depict it as relatively minor and benign and the crimes they commit largely as survival behaviors, and not predatory criminality. While it is clear that the homeless are responsible for some crime and violence, it is yet to be established that the crime and violence they commit is any more common or more serious than that perpetrated by equally impoverished but housed individuals.
The Homeless as Victims of Violence Most research examining homelessness and violence focuses on the victimization of homeless people and finds an association between homelessness and criminal victimization (Lee and Schreck, 2005; Thrane et al., 2006; Whitbeck and Simons, 1990). Even when compared to similar housed counterparts, homeless people report higher levels of victimization (Lee and Schreck, 2005), often by wide margins. It is nearly axiomatic that life on the streets or in the shelters exposes homeless people to high crime risks, and while the reward for victimizing a homeless person may be small, they are exceedingly easy targets, especially if they are also substance abusive, mentally ill, or both.
Violence as a Precursor to Homelessness Victimization is both a cause and consequence of homelessness. Many studies have found an association between adult experiences of homelessness and childhood experiences of abuse and neglect (Mayock and Sheridan, 2012; McIntyre and Widom, 2011; Paradise and Cauce, 2002; Thrane et al., 2006) and repeated bullying (Bouffard and Koeppel, 2012). In a study of homeless adults in the United Kingdom, 22% reported being victims of physical abuse while 16% reported being victims of sexual abuse during their childhood (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). Not only does the experience of childhood abuse and neglect increase the likelihood that people will become homeless, it also increases the likelihood that adult homeless people will experience victimization (Lee and Schreck, 2005; McIntyre and Widom, 2011; Jasinski et al., 2010).
Homeless Youth Like homeless adults, homeless youths report higher rates of child abuse and neglect as compared to nonhomeless youths (Stoltz et al., 2007). Violence at home is, for many youths, the reason they become homeless in the first place. Oftentimes, they leave of their own volition (sometimes fleeing domestic
situations so abusive that life on the streets becomes the preferred alternative) while other times they are kicked out. In a survey of homeless youth aged 13 17 years in Australia, 45% had experienced violence at home prior to becoming homeless (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008).
Homeless Women Studies of victimization of homeless people have consistently found that homeless women are more likely to be victims of violence, particularly sexual assault and rape, as compared to homeless men (Evans and Forsyth, 2004; Kim et al., 2010; Kushel et al., 2003; Lee and Schreck, 2005). While homeless, the lack of suitable and stable shelter increases the likelihood that a woman will be a victim of violence, and here too, this is particularly true if substance abuse or mental illness is also part of the picture. A great deal of research concerns the role of violence in the lives of homeless women. While violence is unfortunately a salient part of homelessness for many people, this is particularly true among women. For many homeless women, victimization begins at home in childhood and continues as an adult experiencing homelessness. Across numerous studies, homeless women who report having been abused as a child also report higher rates of violent victimization as an adult. Research examining why this correlation exists has not been conclusive. Some of the cited relevant factors include a lack of skill in developing healthy and safe relationships, a lack of knowledge of what constitutes a healthy relationship, the inability to recognize warning signs of an abusive relationship, general low self-esteem, and depression (see Jasinski et al., 2010; for an overview of relevant literature). Domestic violence is a main cause of homelessness among women. In the US data reported by Jasinski et al. (2010), approximately three-quarters of homeless women reported histories of domestic violence and about one in four cited intimate partner abuse as a or the main reason for their current homelessness. Other studies have suggested that as much as half of all homelessness among women is precipitated by domestic violence and abuse. While the majority of research in this area comes from the United States, the connection between violence and homeless women is not unique to the United States. In 2007, half of the homeless women in Australia seeking homeless services cited violence as the cause of their homeless status (Homelessness Taskforce, 2008). In a study of 60 homeless women in Ireland, 72% reported being victimized as children and two-thirds reported experiencing intimate partner violence as an adult (Mayock and Sheridan, 2012).
Victimization While Homeless Homeless people have been victims of physical attacks and even murder around the globe including in the United States (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012) and Japan (Fujii and Tamaki, 2003). Among the homeless adult population, those sleeping rough or unsheltered and those that are mentally ill (Dennis and Steadman, 1991) are particularly vulnerable to violent attacks. A pertinent CNN story of 20
Violence, Criminalization, and the Homeless February 2007 referred to this as ‘sport killing’ and reported that “Teen ‘sport killings’ of homeless [are] on the rise.” Since 1999, the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) has issued an annual report on attacks against homeless people in the United States. Through the end of 2011, the NCH has documented 1289 attacks of violence against homeless persons perpetrated by housed individuals in the United States, including 339 murders (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012). Among these documented attacks, the most common perpetrator is a young man (under the age of 30 years) while the typical victim is an older man (aged 40 60 years). The NCH focuses on attacks on homeless people perpetrated by housed people. Information about violence perpetrated against homeless people by other homeless people is extremely scarce. In regard to homeless youths, one of the most commonly found salient factors is the history of child abuse. Among homeless youth this has been associated with greater levels of victimization as adults in many studies (Melander and Tyler, 2010; Tyler et al., 2001; Tyler and Melander, 2013; Whitbeck et al., 2001). Among the homeless youth population, those that identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual seem to be at disproportionate risk of victimization as compared to their heterosexual counterparts (Tyler, 2008). In the United States, several states have responded to attacks against homeless people by adding housing status to their state hate-crime statutes. Despite several attempts, housing status is not included in the United States federal hate-crime definition. Likewise, while there have been widely publicized attacks against homeless persons in the United Kingdom, to date homeless people are not protected under the UK hate-crime law (Garland, 2012). While hate crimes of any sort are relatively rare occurrences, many argue that homeless people are particularly vulnerable and that these occurrences serve to further delineate between the value and rights of the housed versus those of the unhoused (Wachholz, 2009).
Criminalization of Homelessness as a Policy Response Across the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, the response to the issue of homelessness has often been to criminalize behaviors associated with homeless people (for the US case, see Donley and Wright, 2008; for a case study in Europe, see Bence and Udvarhelyi, 2013; for the Asian case, see e.g., Wardhaugh, 2012). These criminalization measures are not designed to address the causes of homelessness but rather serve as measures to remove homeless people from public places. Criminalization tactics come in many forms and vary across jurisdictions. Some of the more common measures include the enactment of law targeting homeless-related behaviors and ‘street sweeps,’ where homeless people are forcibly removed from certain areas within cities. Law enforcement has attempted to protect citizens, business owners, and public spaces by criminalizing unavoidable, yet undesirable actions, but this approach may be ineffective and counterproductive. “Police, attorneys, judges, and other actors in the criminal justice system . see panhandling as a minor offense the prosecution of which consumes valuable time, leaves root causes intact, and fails to deter reoccurrence” (Lee
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and Farrell, 2003: 318). Deterrence cannot have an effect when the person sometimes has no other choice but to commit a crime for basic subsistence (Davis, 1992). The NLCHP (2011) concurs that the criminalization of homelessness only has temporary effects on homeless criminal activity, jailing them for a short period of time then releasing them with no choice but to commit the same ‘subsistence crimes’ again. Los Angeles is an example of a major American city that has used aggressive policing as a response to homelessness. This effort is also one of the few that was subsequently examined in terms of cost and effectiveness. The Safer Cities Initiative carried out in the notorious LA Skid Row area issued citations at 50 to 70 times the average rate and only 21 of the 1346 nondrug arrests in the area were for violent crimes (Blasi, 2007). Many individuals were cited for small crimes such as sitting on the sidewalk or throwing cigarettes on the ground. Homeless individuals often do not have the ability to pay the associated fines, would consequently be arrested, and released back onto the street with no other options. In just under a year of the Safer City Initiative, 24 individuals were arrested 201 times at an estimated cost of 3.6 million US dollars. The police officers used to carry out this initiative cost the city of Los Angeles an additional 6 million dollars. In the end, there was a decrease in the number of homeless individuals in Skid Row but an increase in the number of homeless individuals in surrounding areas. Thus, these measures did not decrease the number of homeless people but rather resulted in nothing more than some relocation of the homeless to other areas. Budapest is an example of a European city that has attempted to end homelessness by outlawing it. Among the measures adopted by the Hungarians is a federal law allowing local municipalities to ban the ‘inadequate use’ of public spaces; in Budapest, this became a prohibition on the use of public space for ‘habitual residence’ or storage of one’s belongings (Bence and Udvarhelyi, 2013). In the same vein, various districts in Budapest have been declared ‘homeless-free zones,’ and there has been a recent Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of local governments to criminalize ‘habitual residence’ in places not intended for human habitation. Of all the behaviors associated with homelessness in the public mind, panhandling is evidently one of the most offensive (Lee and Farrell, 2003). As a result, this behavior has been a main target of effort to ‘clean up the streets.’ However, “contrary to common belief, panhandlers and homeless people are not necessarily one and the same. Many studies have found that only a small percentage of homeless people panhandle, and only a small percentage of panhandlers are homeless” (Scott, 2002). Although exact numbers are unavailable, estimates of the percentage of homeless people that engage in panhandling range from 5 to 40% (Lee and Farrell, 2003). Moreover, many panhandlers are not homeless. Goldstein (1993) found in his research in New Haven, Connecticut that only one-third of panhandlers were actually homeless. Nevertheless, panhandling and homelessness are intimately linked in public thinking. The criminalization of homelessness is an international concern as research has pointed to an increase in privatization of public spaces, anti-homeless legislation, and practices of forced displacement in many countries including Canada,
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United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Japan, as well as the United States. China too has undergone major changes in the way it responds to homeless people over the past 15 years. Centers that used to be places where homeless people were incarcerated for activities such as begging have been converted into homeless aid centers. While many hail this change as a major improvement, criminalization persists. Anti-begging laws are common and beggars are portrayed in the media as criminals (Kennett and Mizuuchi, 2010).
Conclusion and Future Research The criminalization of homelessness in the United States has been the subject of numerous lawsuits that argue certain ordinances infringe on citizens’ freedom of speech and movement as well as freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, discrimination, and forced evictions. The Supreme Court has ruled against the vagueness of some anti-homeless legislation (Papichristou vs City of Jacksonville). It has also been ruled that certain anti-homeless legislation is unconstitutional if it prohibits basic ‘lifesustaining activities’ and if alternatives do not exist. In the absence of these conditions, people cannot be prosecuted for things such as sleeping in the park or relieving themselves in public (Pottinger vs City of Miami, Jones vs City of Los Angeles). The United States Congress passed the Helping Families Save their Homes Act of 2009 requiring the development of alternative solutions to criminalizing homelessness. Anti-panhandling initiatives have been more successful. Although general panhandling is protected under the First Amendment in the United States, aggressive panhandling has been legally banned in communities across the country (Wright and Donley, 2011). While this is not the place to review all the root causes of homelessness, it can be said that homelessness results when there are more low-income people than there are low-income housing units. At its base, in other words, homelessness results from inadequate incomes and inadequate supplies of affordable housing. Being homeless places people at high risk for criminal victimization, and this often puts these same people in positions where petty criminality is nearly required for daily survival. Criminalizing homelessness by criminalizing the behaviors associated with homeless does nothing to address root causes; this attacks the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself. No city in the world has eliminated homelessness via criminalization, although many have tried. Future studies should examine the potential impact of programs designed to address root causes of homelessness as opposed to criminalizing homelessness-related behaviors. In addition, it is important to better understand levels of criminality among homeless people. While some studies have been done to date, typically these must rely on arrest data, selfreports among sheltered homeless individuals, or analysis of individual cases. A great deal of research today examines reintegration of individuals exiting criminal justice institutions and reentering communities. The reintegration of homeless individuals presents unique challenges and, thus, research that focuses on these issues would be particularly important.
See also: Domestic Violence: Sociological Perspectives; Homelessness in the United States; Intimate Partner Abuse, Applied Research on; Poverty, Sociology of; Street Children: Cultural Concerns; Urban Poverty in Neighborhoods; Violence: Public.
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Abstract Homeless people are sometimes the perpetrators and quite often the victims of crime and violence. This article reviews the available research on this topic, focusing mainly on studies conducted in the United States. Homeless teens, women, the mentally ill, and the substance-abusive are shown to be especially high-risk subpopulations. Random acts of violence committed against homeless people are evidently on the rise, both in the United States and around the world. Around the world, many communities have responded to the rise in homelessness by criminalizing homeless behaviors. Unfortunately these measures do not assist people in exiting homelessness.
In popular thinking, homelessness and crime are tightly interwoven (Amster, 2008). Homeless shelters and other locales frequented by homeless people are routinely avoided because they are perceived as crime hot spots, and homeless people themselves are routinely avoided because of their real or imagined criminal potential (Snow et al., 1989). Homeless individuals are often seen as irresponsible and deviant, leading to a public perception that equates homelessness and crime (Barak, 2002). While the media and many policies targeting homeless people focus on the perpetration of crime by homeless people, scholarly research has tended to focus on the victimization of homeless people (Crawford et al., 2011).
The Homeless as Perpetrators of Violence Most of what we know about criminal perpetration by homeless people comes from studies examining previous arrest and prison experience. In a study of 767 homeless people in Austin Texas, Snow et al. (1989) found that the typical arrest of a homeless person was for a minor offense such as vagrancy or shoplifting. Out of their total sample, 32% had been arrested at least once, but the vast majority of those arrests were for nonviolent crimes. While homeless men are no more likely than the general male population to commit violent crimes, they are arrested more frequently for nonviolent crimes (Snow et al., 1989). A national survey of homeless providers and homeless clients in the United States found that 49% had been incarcerated for five or more days in jail, but only 18% had spent time in a federal prison (Burt et al., 1999). The authors note that, “some of these jail experiences may have been a direct result of their homelessness (i.e., the charges might be for behaviors that are difficult to avoid if one is homeless, such as loitering)” (Burt et al., 1999: 25). Kushel et al. (2005) found that among their sample of 1500 homeless people, nearly a quarter had spent time in prison. Drug use (specifically cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin) as well as mental illness were positively correlated with past prison experience. In the United Kingdom, Fitzpatrick et al. (2013) conducted a statistically generalizable survey of homeless people and found that 46% had been incarcerated at some point in their lives. However, detailed information on the nature of their incarceration was not available and, thus, the nature of the crimes committed is not known.
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Both mental illness and substance abuse among homeless people increase the likelihood that they will be arrested and incarcerated. In a study of homeless adults, 20% of those with substance abuse issues had been arrested in the past year compared to 10% of those that did not have a substance abuse problem (O’Toole et al., 2004). McGuire and Rosenheck (2004) found in their study of 7000 homeless people with serious mental illness that two-thirds had histories of incarceration. However, of these about half had spent a total of six months or less of their lives incarcerated. Among those with more extensive incarceration histories, substance abuse was a positive correlate, illustrating the relationship between mental illness and substance abuse. In the United States, there are well-established links between mental illness, incarceration, and homelessness (DeLisi, 2000; Ditton, 1999; Snow et al., 1989). Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the United States began in 1955; thus, by 1980 or so (usually taken as the onset of the large upsurge of homelessness that happened in American and cities abroad), most persons destined to be deinstitutionalized already had been. The proper concern for the past two decades has, therefore, been not with deinstitutionalized but rather with the ‘never institutionalized,’ namely, mentally ill homeless people who had never been brought into a system of care. A related and even more pressing concern has been with the ‘trans-institutionalized’; that is, those who might have been in mental hospitals in years past but are now in prisons and jails instead (Raphael and Stoll, 2013). Many homeless mentally ill people spend a great deal of time incarcerated; indeed, Torrey et al. (2010) conclude that there are more mentally ill people in jails and prisons than in psychiatric hospitals. Similarly, Markowitz (2006) found that in the United States, increased mental health and psychiatric hospital capacity was correlated with lower levels of homelessness. Most homeless people with mental illness problems in the United States find that there is nowhere to go for help. These individuals are often on the streets, increasing the likelihood of arrest and incarceration. Among homeless youth, less is known about criminal perpetration. However, in the research that has been done, victimization and perpetration are both salient parts of a typical homeless youth’s life (Crawford et al., 2011). One of the first studies examining criminal perpetration among homeless youths found that nearly 1 in 6 of the Los Angeles area youths in their sample had attacked someone with
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a weapon while being on the streets, although this percentage was much lower than the rates of victimization these youths experienced (Kipke et al., 1997). In the Crawford et al. study, homeless youth who were female, nonminority, and heterosexual were less likely to engage in violence than their opposites; alcohol and drug-abusers were more likely to engage in violence, a common finding (Chen et al., 2006; Kipke et al., 1997). Moreover, increased time on the streets is positively correlated to rates of criminal perpetration (Whitbeck and Hoyt, 1999). Most studies of violence perpetration among the homeless depict it as relatively minor and benign and the crimes they commit largely as survival behaviors, and not predatory criminality. While it is clear that the homeless are responsible for some crime and violence, it is yet to be established that the crime and violence they commit is any more common or more serious than that perpetrated by equally impoverished but housed individuals.
The Homeless as Victims of Violence Most research examining homelessness and violence focuses on the victimization of homeless people and finds an association between homelessness and criminal victimization (Lee and Schreck, 2005; Thrane et al., 2006; Whitbeck and Simons, 1990). Even when compared to similar housed counterparts, homeless people report higher levels of victimization (Lee and Schreck, 2005), often by wide margins. It is nearly axiomatic that life on the streets or in the shelters exposes homeless people to high crime risks, and while the reward for victimizing a homeless person may be small, they are exceedingly easy targets, especially if they are also substance abusive, mentally ill, or both.
Violence as a Precursor to Homelessness Victimization is both a cause and consequence of homelessness. Many studies have found an association between adult experiences of homelessness and childhood experiences of abuse and neglect (Mayock and Sheridan, 2012; McIntyre and Widom, 2011; Paradise and Cauce, 2002; Thrane et al., 2006) and repeated bullying (Bouffard and Koeppel, 2012). In a study of homeless adults in the United Kingdom, 22% reported being victims of physical abuse while 16% reported being victims of sexual abuse during their childhood (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). Not only does the experience of childhood abuse and neglect increase the likelihood that people will become homeless, it also increases the likelihood that adult homeless people will experience victimization (Lee and Schreck, 2005; McIntyre and Widom, 2011; Jasinski et al., 2010).
Homeless Youth Like homeless adults, homeless youths report higher rates of child abuse and neglect as compared to nonhomeless youths (Stoltz et al., 2007). Violence at home is, for many youths, the reason they become homeless in the first place. Oftentimes, they leave of their own volition (sometimes fleeing domestic
situations so abusive that life on the streets becomes the preferred alternative) while other times they are kicked out. In a survey of homeless youth aged 13 17 years in Australia, 45% had experienced violence at home prior to becoming homeless (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008).
Homeless Women Studies of victimization of homeless people have consistently found that homeless women are more likely to be victims of violence, particularly sexual assault and rape, as compared to homeless men (Evans and Forsyth, 2004; Kim et al., 2010; Kushel et al., 2003; Lee and Schreck, 2005). While homeless, the lack of suitable and stable shelter increases the likelihood that a woman will be a victim of violence, and here too, this is particularly true if substance abuse or mental illness is also part of the picture. A great deal of research concerns the role of violence in the lives of homeless women. While violence is unfortunately a salient part of homelessness for many people, this is particularly true among women. For many homeless women, victimization begins at home in childhood and continues as an adult experiencing homelessness. Across numerous studies, homeless women who report having been abused as a child also report higher rates of violent victimization as an adult. Research examining why this correlation exists has not been conclusive. Some of the cited relevant factors include a lack of skill in developing healthy and safe relationships, a lack of knowledge of what constitutes a healthy relationship, the inability to recognize warning signs of an abusive relationship, general low self-esteem, and depression (see Jasinski et al., 2010; for an overview of relevant literature). Domestic violence is a main cause of homelessness among women. In the US data reported by Jasinski et al. (2010), approximately three-quarters of homeless women reported histories of domestic violence and about one in four cited intimate partner abuse as a or the main reason for their current homelessness. Other studies have suggested that as much as half of all homelessness among women is precipitated by domestic violence and abuse. While the majority of research in this area comes from the United States, the connection between violence and homeless women is not unique to the United States. In 2007, half of the homeless women in Australia seeking homeless services cited violence as the cause of their homeless status (Homelessness Taskforce, 2008). In a study of 60 homeless women in Ireland, 72% reported being victimized as children and two-thirds reported experiencing intimate partner violence as an adult (Mayock and Sheridan, 2012).
Victimization While Homeless Homeless people have been victims of physical attacks and even murder around the globe including in the United States (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012) and Japan (Fujii and Tamaki, 2003). Among the homeless adult population, those sleeping rough or unsheltered and those that are mentally ill (Dennis and Steadman, 1991) are particularly vulnerable to violent attacks. A pertinent CNN story of 20
Violence, Criminalization, and the Homeless February 2007 referred to this as ‘sport killing’ and reported that “Teen ‘sport killings’ of homeless [are] on the rise.” Since 1999, the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) has issued an annual report on attacks against homeless people in the United States. Through the end of 2011, the NCH has documented 1289 attacks of violence against homeless persons perpetrated by housed individuals in the United States, including 339 murders (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012). Among these documented attacks, the most common perpetrator is a young man (under the age of 30 years) while the typical victim is an older man (aged 40 60 years). The NCH focuses on attacks on homeless people perpetrated by housed people. Information about violence perpetrated against homeless people by other homeless people is extremely scarce. In regard to homeless youths, one of the most commonly found salient factors is the history of child abuse. Among homeless youth this has been associated with greater levels of victimization as adults in many studies (Melander and Tyler, 2010; Tyler et al., 2001; Tyler and Melander, 2013; Whitbeck et al., 2001). Among the homeless youth population, those that identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual seem to be at disproportionate risk of victimization as compared to their heterosexual counterparts (Tyler, 2008). In the United States, several states have responded to attacks against homeless people by adding housing status to their state hate-crime statutes. Despite several attempts, housing status is not included in the United States federal hate-crime definition. Likewise, while there have been widely publicized attacks against homeless persons in the United Kingdom, to date homeless people are not protected under the UK hate-crime law (Garland, 2012). While hate crimes of any sort are relatively rare occurrences, many argue that homeless people are particularly vulnerable and that these occurrences serve to further delineate between the value and rights of the housed versus those of the unhoused (Wachholz, 2009).
Criminalization of Homelessness as a Policy Response Across the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, the response to the issue of homelessness has often been to criminalize behaviors associated with homeless people (for the US case, see Donley and Wright, 2008; for a case study in Europe, see Bence and Udvarhelyi, 2013; for the Asian case, see e.g., Wardhaugh, 2012). These criminalization measures are not designed to address the causes of homelessness but rather serve as measures to remove homeless people from public places. Criminalization tactics come in many forms and vary across jurisdictions. Some of the more common measures include the enactment of law targeting homeless-related behaviors and ‘street sweeps,’ where homeless people are forcibly removed from certain areas within cities. Law enforcement has attempted to protect citizens, business owners, and public spaces by criminalizing unavoidable, yet undesirable actions, but this approach may be ineffective and counterproductive. “Police, attorneys, judges, and other actors in the criminal justice system . see panhandling as a minor offense the prosecution of which consumes valuable time, leaves root causes intact, and fails to deter reoccurrence” (Lee
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and Farrell, 2003: 318). Deterrence cannot have an effect when the person sometimes has no other choice but to commit a crime for basic subsistence (Davis, 1992). The NLCHP (2011) concurs that the criminalization of homelessness only has temporary effects on homeless criminal activity, jailing them for a short period of time then releasing them with no choice but to commit the same ‘subsistence crimes’ again. Los Angeles is an example of a major American city that has used aggressive policing as a response to homelessness. This effort is also one of the few that was subsequently examined in terms of cost and effectiveness. The Safer Cities Initiative carried out in the notorious LA Skid Row area issued citations at 50 to 70 times the average rate and only 21 of the 1346 nondrug arrests in the area were for violent crimes (Blasi, 2007). Many individuals were cited for small crimes such as sitting on the sidewalk or throwing cigarettes on the ground. Homeless individuals often do not have the ability to pay the associated fines, would consequently be arrested, and released back onto the street with no other options. In just under a year of the Safer City Initiative, 24 individuals were arrested 201 times at an estimated cost of 3.6 million US dollars. The police officers used to carry out this initiative cost the city of Los Angeles an additional 6 million dollars. In the end, there was a decrease in the number of homeless individuals in Skid Row but an increase in the number of homeless individuals in surrounding areas. Thus, these measures did not decrease the number of homeless people but rather resulted in nothing more than some relocation of the homeless to other areas. Budapest is an example of a European city that has attempted to end homelessness by outlawing it. Among the measures adopted by the Hungarians is a federal law allowing local municipalities to ban the ‘inadequate use’ of public spaces; in Budapest, this became a prohibition on the use of public space for ‘habitual residence’ or storage of one’s belongings (Bence and Udvarhelyi, 2013). In the same vein, various districts in Budapest have been declared ‘homeless-free zones,’ and there has been a recent Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of local governments to criminalize ‘habitual residence’ in places not intended for human habitation. Of all the behaviors associated with homelessness in the public mind, panhandling is evidently one of the most offensive (Lee and Farrell, 2003). As a result, this behavior has been a main target of effort to ‘clean up the streets.’ However, “contrary to common belief, panhandlers and homeless people are not necessarily one and the same. Many studies have found that only a small percentage of homeless people panhandle, and only a small percentage of panhandlers are homeless” (Scott, 2002). Although exact numbers are unavailable, estimates of the percentage of homeless people that engage in panhandling range from 5 to 40% (Lee and Farrell, 2003). Moreover, many panhandlers are not homeless. Goldstein (1993) found in his research in New Haven, Connecticut that only one-third of panhandlers were actually homeless. Nevertheless, panhandling and homelessness are intimately linked in public thinking. The criminalization of homelessness is an international concern as research has pointed to an increase in privatization of public spaces, anti-homeless legislation, and practices of forced displacement in many countries including Canada,
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United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Japan, as well as the United States. China too has undergone major changes in the way it responds to homeless people over the past 15 years. Centers that used to be places where homeless people were incarcerated for activities such as begging have been converted into homeless aid centers. While many hail this change as a major improvement, criminalization persists. Anti-begging laws are common and beggars are portrayed in the media as criminals (Kennett and Mizuuchi, 2010).
Conclusion and Future Research The criminalization of homelessness in the United States has been the subject of numerous lawsuits that argue certain ordinances infringe on citizens’ freedom of speech and movement as well as freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, discrimination, and forced evictions. The Supreme Court has ruled against the vagueness of some anti-homeless legislation (Papichristou vs City of Jacksonville). It has also been ruled that certain anti-homeless legislation is unconstitutional if it prohibits basic ‘lifesustaining activities’ and if alternatives do not exist. In the absence of these conditions, people cannot be prosecuted for things such as sleeping in the park or relieving themselves in public (Pottinger vs City of Miami, Jones vs City of Los Angeles). The United States Congress passed the Helping Families Save their Homes Act of 2009 requiring the development of alternative solutions to criminalizing homelessness. Anti-panhandling initiatives have been more successful. Although general panhandling is protected under the First Amendment in the United States, aggressive panhandling has been legally banned in communities across the country (Wright and Donley, 2011). While this is not the place to review all the root causes of homelessness, it can be said that homelessness results when there are more low-income people than there are low-income housing units. At its base, in other words, homelessness results from inadequate incomes and inadequate supplies of affordable housing. Being homeless places people at high risk for criminal victimization, and this often puts these same people in positions where petty criminality is nearly required for daily survival. Criminalizing homelessness by criminalizing the behaviors associated with homeless does nothing to address root causes; this attacks the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself. No city in the world has eliminated homelessness via criminalization, although many have tried. Future studies should examine the potential impact of programs designed to address root causes of homelessness as opposed to criminalizing homelessness-related behaviors. In addition, it is important to better understand levels of criminality among homeless people. While some studies have been done to date, typically these must rely on arrest data, selfreports among sheltered homeless individuals, or analysis of individual cases. A great deal of research today examines reintegration of individuals exiting criminal justice institutions and reentering communities. The reintegration of homeless individuals presents unique challenges and, thus, research that focuses on these issues would be particularly important.
See also: Domestic Violence: Sociological Perspectives; Homelessness in the United States; Intimate Partner Abuse, Applied Research on; Poverty, Sociology of; Street Children: Cultural Concerns; Urban Poverty in Neighborhoods; Violence: Public.
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